Ancient India
The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in South Asia date from approximately 30,000 years ago.
Nearly contemporaneous Mesolithic rock art sites have been found in many parts of the Indian subcontinent,
including at the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh. Around 7000 BCE, the first known Neolithic
settlements appeared on the subcontinent in Mehrgarh and other sites in western Pakistan. These gradually
developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation, the first urban culture in South Asia; it flourished during
2500–1900 BCE in Pakistan and western India. Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira,
and Kalibangan, and relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts production
and wide-ranging trade.
India 4
Paintings at the Ajanta Caves in
Aurangabad, Maharashtra, 6th
century
During the period 2000–500 BCE, in terms of culture, many regions of the
subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age. The Vedas,
the oldest scriptures of Hinduism,[26] were composed during this period,[27] and
historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and
the upper Gangetic Plain. Most historians also consider this period to have
encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from
the north-west. The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests,
warriors, and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labeling
their occupations impure, arose during this period. On the Deccan Plateau,
archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom
stage of political organisation.In southern India, a progression to sedentary
life is indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this
period, as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, and craft
traditions.
In the late Vedic period, around the 5th century BCE, the small chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western
regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas.
The emerging urbanisation and the orthodoxies of this age also created the religious reform movements of Buddhism
and Jainism, both of which became independent religions. Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama
Buddha attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class; chronicling the life of the Buddha was
central to the beginnings of recorded history in India. Jainism came into prominence around the same time
during the life of its exemplar, Mahavira. In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up
renunciation as an ideal, and both established long-lasting monasteriesPolitically, by the 3rd century BCE,
the kingdom of Magadha had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the Mauryan Empire. The empire was
once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent excepting the far south, but its core regions are now
thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas. The Mauryan kings are known as much for their
empire-building and determined management of public life as for Ashoka's renunciation of militarism and far-flung
advocacy of the Buddhist dhamma.
The Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between 200 BCE and 200 CE, the southern peninsula was
being ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas, dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire
and with West and South-East Asia. In North India, Hinduism asserted patriarchal control within the family,
leading to increased subordination of women. By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Gupta Empire had created in
the greater Ganges Plain a complex system of administration and taxation that became a model for later Indian
kingdoms. Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion rather than the management of ritual
began to assert itself. The renewal was reflected in a flowering of sculpture and architecture, which found patrons
among an urban elite. Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and Indian science, astronomy, medicine, and
mathematics made significant advances.
